The Princess and the Monster
by SoItGoes19
Summary: She wasn't much of a princess, and he certainly wasn't a prince.  But he climbed the tower anyway, step by idiotic step.  For her.


**I was inspired to write this fic after watching the Dexter season finale. I must say, while a lot of people didn't really care for the character, I was very sorry to see Lumen go because I felt like she brought out Dexter's human side. I think he really cared for her, in his own little way, so this is my attempt at exploring that.**

**Most of this was written the night before I got my wisdom teeth out and couldn't sleep, so sorry if the quality is poor!**

Dexter remembers the time that Sonya asked him if it would be all right to read Harrison a fairy tale.

He sits on the sofa just next to the bassinette, as she gathers her things to leave. Ready to slip into Daddy mode, poised to remove one mask and slip on another, quietly and with out fuss, because he it's all he can do, when she looks at him. She's all wide eyes and green hills as always, but discerning Dexter detects a bit of uncertainty.

She must still be a bit shook up from the whole Saint Bridget episode. As if, because he had a problem with Saints, he would take issue with fairy tales as well. Truth be told they're all kind of the same to him, but telling it will please her, and after all of the late nights she's pulled during his moonlit prowls, he owes her this small pleasure.

He nods. She leans in next to him and takes her place at Harrison's bedside vigil as well, a touch too close for his personal liking. Maybe they had different standards of personal space in Ireland.

"Once upon a time, there was a kind and gentle princess," she begins, "who was so beautiful that she was locked away in an impenetrable tower guarded by a fire breathing monster. She waited there for many days, hoping for someone to rescue her."

And before he knows it, her sees her face. Lumen. The entire thing is so cliché that all he wants to do is slit his own throat and throw his body into the bay, but at least he takes pride that his mind does not romanticize her appearance. He sees her as she was when he found her.

She's Dirty. God, she was absolutely rank, stinking of sex and sweat and probably her own excrement; her blond hair caked with dirt and twisted with knots; the angry red welts on her back casting a stark contrast against her pale skin and oozing yellow puss. Feral. Her eyes dart back and forth like those of a wild animal, focusing on nothing and no one. He knows that look far too well, having seen it in all of his prey in the moments just before they met their end. Untrusting. Those flittering eyes refuse to focus on his the most, as if they are afraid to look inside of them and see something familiar.

She's not much of a princess, and obviously he's not a prince, but she is alone. She is alone and small and fragile and without his help she will die. So he climbs the tower, step by idiotic step, and when he sees her crumpled form he can't stop himself from thinking: _I can save you. _

He takes her back to the house that he and Rita once shared - to keep her out, is what he tells himself. To compartmentalize, to keep this new annoyance separate and away from his perfectly ordered life. He keeps her alive, gives her necessities, brings her food everyday. After all he is a very neat monster and it simply wouldn't do to have her die of starvation in his very own home.

"Did you eat today?" he asks.

She looks at him nonchalantly and answers, "I ate this morning."

A rush of feelings bubble up inside of him: anger and frustration and impatience. She has a habit of doing that, he notices, of making him feel less like a controlled predator and more just like a frustrated man beating his fists against the wind. He wants to simultaneously bash her head in with the cherub statue in the windowsill and ask her if she thinks that if she becomes small enough that he won't be able to find her? He settles for filling her plate with schezwan shrimp.

"It's night now. Eat more."

She does, ravenously. A half hour later, the chop-sticks still sit to the right of her plate, unopened, but her fingers are covered in the sticky sauce. She closes her eyes and makes a small sigh of contentment.

Idiot, he thinks. She didn't even know that she was hungry, like a small child. What would she have done if he hadn't come here? She was helpless without him.

Her eyes flutter once, twice, with what he dearly hopes is drowsiness. He pictures her falling asleep at the table, him carrying her back to bed cradled in his arms.

But then the spell is broken. She jumps up from the table and mutters something about making more coffee, stomping about the kitchen, clanging various pots and pans in what he knows is an effort to wake herself up.

_What if they come for me in the night?_

Another feeling tugs at his insides, fierce and warm. Pure heat. He looks at her once more, blond hair tumbling over her shoulders, the scars on her back hidden by her light sweater, but still there. He knows that he won't hesitate to kill anyone that tries to hurt her again.

_I can protect you. _

The night of Alex's murder she stands before him, dressed in all black.

"I look stupid," she says.

"No," he assures her and searches in the back of his mind for the right word, "You look… perfect."

She smiles, and he knows there is no other word for it. In front of him is no longer broken Lumen, Lumen struggling so hard to hold her pieces together, to plug her holes like a sailor attempts to plug a leaking boat. The Lumen he sees now has steel in her blue eyes. She stands with both feet anchored firmly into the earth. Like a survivor, a victor. He likes to think that maybe he had something to do with that.

She takes the knife and practices, thrusting it over and over again into her imaginary victim.

She wears gloves like his.

Later that night he hold her in his bed, just listening to the sounds of her slow and easy breathing, because she can sleep now. He gently kisses the scars on her back, the angry red spider web that has only just begun to heal and hopes against hope that she will stay with him.

Because that's what princes really want to do, isn't it?

They don't save the princess just to return them into the world. They don't take her to seminars her on how to get a job or be a functional member of society. They don't help her get a state driver's license or social security card. They bring her back to their castle and ironically place her into yet another tower; this time not to keep her away from the world, but to simply to_ keep_ her. To keep her safe, yes, to keep her loved. But mostly to keep her for themselves.

Dexter watches her silently. The only person who has ever seen his dark side, who has seen him for what her truly is, and not turned away.

_I can keep you. _

"The prince slayed the ferocious monster and rescued the princess from the tower. And the two of them lived happily ever after," Sonya finished, her voice ending with a note of finality. As if that is how it has always been and forever should be.

_I can't stay here, _Lumen says. _I can't do it anymore. _

There are a thousand things he wants to say to her. He is devious Dexter, master manipulator, and she is lost and lonely Lumen. She is nothing. There are a thousand things that he can tell her to make her stay in Miami, make her stay with _him_, and he grasps at the words floating through his mind like lifelines. But for some reason, the only thing that comes out is the truth.

_You don't have to. _

He could tell her that he loves her.

It's not true.

It can't be true, as Harry so consistently reminds him.

But it's as true as it can be, for him anyway.

He wants to share his life with her, all of it. He wants to give her Daddy Dexter, the man with the house in the suburbs and the white picket fences and the beautiful new baby son. He wants to give her Daily-life Dexter, the nice-but-awkward blood splatter guy who brings in donuts for everyone at the station, who is relied on, who is neat and orderly and always gets the job done.

But most of all he wants to give her Demented Dexter. Demented Dexter who only lives underneath the glow of the moonlight. Who takes joy in taking blood. He wants only to give her his true self, which until then, he had only shown to his victims.

And he wants her not to turn away.

_Don't go. _He wants to say._ Don't leave me. _

She looks at him with her knowing blue eyes.

_But you do._

"I love a good fairy tale," Sonya remarks as she steps out the door. "You always know what's going to happen, but it doesn't stop it from being exciting."  
Dexter nods and bids his Irish supernanny a good night.

He returns to his place next to the bassinette and watches Harrison sleep, the ghost of a smile on his tiny face.

Because even his son knew.

The princess doesn't live happily ever after with the monster.

**Constructive Criticism is always appreciated! Especially because this is my first time ever writing for Dexter, and his voice is very complex. **


End file.
